Generating and maintaining personal data is typically a manual process carried out by the person associated with that personal data. Consider, for example, a person's address book.
An address book is typically a collection of contact details, such as address (home and/or office), telephone number (home and/or office), mobile phone number, fax number, e-mail address, etc). Most address book systems store the contact entries in alphabetical order, by each contact's last name. Historically, paper-based address books have been used. Some such address books use loose-leaf binders so as to allow for updates to the address book (e.g., adding, removing, reordering), as the owner's contacts change over time.
Many people maintain their address books using electronic organizers or software-based address books, which eliminate many of the problems associated with traditional paper-based address books. For example, such address books have been used in e-mail systems for many years. In addition, personal information manager (PIM) systems are now available that integrate various now common functionalities such as an address book, personal calendar or schedule, and a timeline of action items or tasks to be completed.
Typically, entries of an electronic address book can be exchanged between host devices (e.g., between desktop computer and personal digital assistant), as well as synchronized so that the content of a person's address book at one location (e.g., desktop computer) is the same as the content of that user's address book at another location (e.g., PDA), thereby making the electronic address book very portable. Also, individual entries of an electronic address book can be transferred (e.g., vCards), thereby simplifying the exchange of contact information.
In any case, a person's electronic address book is a dynamically changing collection of data. Maintaining this address book is a significant chore, as the owner acquires new contacts or the details of existing contacts change. Currently, this maintenance is done manually by the owner, on an as needed basis. In addition to this time-consuming and tedious maintenance, the process of accessing a particular address (e.g., searching for a particular address among the many included in the address book, and then clicking), is again cumbersome and a barrier to regular and widespread address book use.
Other forms of dynamically changing personal data are also associated with such problems. For instance, consider a person's stock portfolio. Such a portfolio requires entries/updates, for example, when trades are made (e.g., purchase of new stock or additional shares, stock sale, etc), or when information about target companies becomes available.
What is needed, therefore, are techniques for automatically generating and maintaining address books. In a more general sense, there is a need for automatically generating and maintaining personal data, and making it useful to the user with minimal or no effort on part of the user.